It was a good summer for the BC Wildlife Park despite the restrictions put in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“June 1st to August 31 of last year, we had about 44,000 guests but that included all of the school programs, included international tourists, and also included our concert last year,” General Manager Glenn Grant told NL News. “This year we had about 43,000 visitors for the same time period without any of those events.”

“Residents of Kamloops have really wanted to support the park. We also have seen a lot of day traffic from other areas of the province. There has been a lot from the Okanagan, from up North, the Shuswap, and the Lower Mainland. We’ve also seen a few from Alberta and other parts of Canada.”

That said, Grant notes revenue during that three month period was down slightly but he says the park is not in any financial trouble because of grants and donations that came in over the past several months.

“Normally in the summertime we would have a high season rate because we are offering bird of prey programs and animal encounters. With not having those programs, we didn’t increase our rates,” he added.

“When we were closed, we lost about $270,000 worth of revenue. We had $108,000 in donations during that same time, and then we are probably down about 15 per cent in revenue during the time that we have been open.”

Grant adds he is pleasantly surprised with how the summer went because there weren’t any international visitors or large bus tours that stopped by the BC Wildlife Park this year.